


Soulmate Safari

by Lorem_Yipsum



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5343695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorem_Yipsum/pseuds/Lorem_Yipsum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jihoon finds his soulmate mark but has no idea who he matched with. He decides to go on pizza dates with everyone he knows. Contains all of Seventeen. Fluffy one shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soulmate Safari

 

Jihoon woke up with his head in an empty pizza box. This could only mean that he had fallen asleep with his head on a text book and rolled over to the other end of the table.

Not an unusual occurrence for the diligent student of music theory, but definitely terrible for his spine.

He stood up and stretched, his eyes still half closed. The morning sun was doing nothing to lift his mood.

He dragged himself into the bathroom and turned on the water to splash refreshing fluid on his tired face. Except… As he rolled up the sleeves of his comfy, pastel sweater he found something on his forearm and froze in shock.

The soulmate mark had appeared.

When? How? And most importantly  _who_?

Jihoon’s mind kicked into gears and started an unrelenting race. Your soulmate mark appeared the very moment you met your soulmate, or soon after. So far, that was exactly how it was supposed to happen. But  _when_  had that been?

He tried to recall the last time he saw his own forearms. In the winter weather he rarely dropped his clothes. Unfortunately, he hadn’t taken off his sweater in about two days and met basically his entire circle of friends in the meantime, seeing as they had celebrated Chan’s seventeenth birthday.

This meant he was going to be the first of his friends somewhere amongst their group to find his soulmate -  _in_  said group no less - but had no idea who it was. What a ridiculous embarrassment. He would never hear the end of it.

No, Lee Jihoon would not be ridiculed on his search for  _the one_.

By the time he had devoured his breakfast – cold pizza – he had formulated a plan. He simply had to date all of them. Clandestinely, of course, like an observer in a trip through wild animal territory.

Since his mark had appeared on his forearm, the other person’s mark would be in the same spot. If he got a look he wouldn’t have to run around asking everybody to show them his forearms and thus escape the awkwardness that came with it.

The perfect plan.

But how to do that?

Right! Pizza dates. Those were innocuous enough.

 

♦

 

Five minutes into Twister Jihoon was starting to hope that Seungkwan wasn’t going to turn out to be his soulmate. That boy had no chill.

“Left foot on red,” proclaimed Chan, chipper as ever, even as he was draped across Vernon.

All four boys shifted accordingly.

Jihoon had picked those three to start with because it had been the easiest option. Since he was their music tutor, it had been a trivial effort to convince them to stay after practice for pizza and play.

Seungkwan made the most exasperated noises as he assumed position, acting like a ninety year old with a weak hip. If Jihoon had to listen to any more complaints about this boy’s joints his eyes would get stuck in a permanent rolling motion.

“Channie?” said Vernon with some difficulty, spread out over the whole field. “Would you turn the arrow for me? Kinda can’t reach over there.”

“Sure thing, bro… um, right hand blue.”

“Oh, dear,” Seungkwan yelled. “Are you kidding me? There is no way-“

“Just try,” growled Jihoon, his face red with exhaustion as he, too, was quite spread out. Additionally, Seungkwan was  _so_  close to exposing his forearm.

As Chan shifted his knee, he kicked the supporting leg out from under Jihoon, who rolled into the other two. The intertwined group collapsed with giggles and pained huffs.

* _Ding Dong_ *

“Oh, that’s gotta be the pizza boy,” Jihoon yelled as he attempted to extract his limps from the pile of boys. He lost a sock, trying to wiggle free from under Vernon, but made it out eventually. Leaving behind Seungkwan’s dramatic screams and the other two’s relentless chuckling, he went for his money.

Jihoon opened the door, hoping the noise behind him wouldn’t make the delivery guy think somebody was being murdered in his apartment.

“Four pizzas for Mister Lee?”

“Yes, that’s me. Here you go.”

Jihoon took the boxes after putting the money on top. He waited for the pizza boy to take the money off and stepped back into his flat. From the corner of his eye he saw the delivery boy shift from one leg to the other. Poor guy, had to drive around in the cold. He looked rather silly with a tight leather jacket over his shrill, colorful delivery uniform. The boy fiddled with his blonde dyed hair, possibly wanting to say something.

Jihoon didn’t have time to hear it.

He kicked the door shut with his knee without saying as much as goodbye and carried the stack into the living room.

“Pizza is ready. Don’t forget to roll up your sleeves. Take it from an expert pizza eater, you’ll end up dipping your clothes into a fat stain quicker than you can react.”

The guests heeded his advice right away, exposing completely bare forearms. Jihoon didn’t let on that he was disappointed at the sight. He himself was careful to roll his sweater up only just below his mark. If he exposed it now he’d have curious questions to answer he was not prepared to deal with.

 

♦

 

Days later Jihoon met with two friends he had never had the opportunity to meet privately before. That was a good enough reason to invite them over for a little while.

“What exactly did you do in Tokyo, Joshua?”

Taking a sip of his green tea, the American-Korean boy answered shyly. “I just played a few concerts over there.”

Jeonghan hit his shoulder blades. “You’re always underselling yourself. Those weren’t just a few concerts. The crowd was wild.”

The long haired boy turned to Jihoon. “Joshua is really in demand here and over there. He’s even considered expanding. For example for a US tour.”

“Well,” Joshua said with a grin, “We’ll see. I have to get a lot better first.”

“Oh please,” Jihoon said with a sigh. “I’ve heard your guitar skills. You’re a genius.”

“Nah, I’m totally rusty. I haven’t played for a few days. Basically since I got back to Korea. It makes so much of a difference.”

* _Ding Dong_ *

Jihoon jumped up and snatched his money from the counter. It was the same pizza boy as always. Not very tall, not exactly short. Not slender, but not heavy either. A regular nobody.

“Hey,” said the guy, “I was wondering if you would give me-“

Jihoon tore the boxes from the boy’s hands. “Well, you can stop wondering. That’s the tip you get. Take it or leave it. With the amount of food I order from you guys all the time I should get a discount. Bye.”

He kicked the door closed with his hip and walked back to his waiting guests, who were staring at each other like there was nothing else in the world worth looking at.

“You boys okay? Should I come again in five minutes? You look like you’re newly found soulmates.”

Both of them grinned at him. “Because we are.”

“Wait, what?  _When?_ ”

“On the Japan tour,” Joshua said.

“Right after his last concert,” Jeonghan added, “we found the marks on your necks where we had given each other hickeys an hour before.”

“Oh, well then… I’m so happy for you,” Jihoon said with a growl, more or less attempting to fake a smile.

He ate his pizza a lot more angrily than usual.

 

♦

 

The next patch of potential soulmates were suspiciously close to each other and if Jihoon hadn’t know better he would have thought they were already a couple.

Soonyoung pushed up his sweatband, looking at the remaining options in his reach. Seokmin on the opposite side of the table was assembling a collection of his own.

Jihoon, right between them, didn’t care about the movie night either way, but had to feign interest if he wanted to get an opportunity to see their forearms.

“I absolutely insist in a comedy,” said Soonyoung for the millionth time.

Seokmin responded the exact way he had done every time before. “I’ve seen all these before. Jokes aren’t funny if you hear them a second time.”

“That’s absurd. A good joke gets funnier with every retelling.”

“You clearly don’t understand how jokes work.”

“Oh yeah, well  _you_  clearly don’t understand what humor is.”

Like an old, bickering couple on a park bench that had the same argument for fifty years while overfeeding the same swarm of pigeons in the exact same spot.

“Listen,” Jihoon said,” If you could just agree on a genre – just a general idea of what to watch. I’d be happy to stream something you haven’t seen before, Seokmin, but somehow I get the impression it’s about more than that and somehow I also get the impression that you, Soonyoung, are just being stubborn for the sake of it and  _when did I become a couple’s therapist_?”

Silence fell over the group. But only until the two boys restarted their argument. This time Soonyoung was willing to watch something else, but now Seokmin had made up his mind that he would only accept a documentary for the night.

Slowly, the wish to beat sense into them with his sturdiest guitar, rose in Jihoon’s mind.

* _Ding Dong_ *

The bell saved both their lives as Jihoon walked off his rage until he opened the door with a powerful swing and a murderous expression on his face.

“Oh, ah-“ said the pizza boy, taken aback.

Jihoon wordlessly snatched the trio of boxes and shoved the money at the guy’s firm chest.

“Um, could you-“ pizza boy started again.

The answer he got was a loudly closed door, an inch from his nose.

Almost slamming the pizzas onto the table, Jihoon sighed at a volume that shut up both debaters.

“Eat. Now. Don’t forget to roll up your sleeves to avoid otherwise inevitable fat stains.”

Grabbing a random DVD of the table, Jihoon went up to his TV set. He returned it, seeing that it was a horror movie. He really didn’t have the nerves to listen to Seokmin’s glass shattering screams of fear tonight.

Picking up another random movie, he got a look at both boys’ forearms. He was silently thankful that the mark hadn’t appeared in a more difficult to see spot. Neither of them was his soulmate. While he was a bit conflicted about that, he decided to be silently thankful for that, too, as soon as they began bickering again.

 

♦

 

It took a little while to find the time to fit the next two candidates into his schedule. By now Jihoon practically lived off the remainder of pizza his guests left behind, so he decided he should be ordering something else this time.

From the same place of course since they had actually offered him a discount by now. He had been joking but it seemed the delivery boy had taken him seriously. Good on him.

The trio ordered burgers and sat down on Jihoon’s sofa. He knew that Mingyu would do whatever he said and Wonwoo would do anything Mingyu was okay with. They were basically brothers. Or secretly soulmates. Jihoon hoped it wasn’t the latter because he was running out of options.

Originally he had planned for Monopoly but he just didn’t have the brainpower right now. They settled for Hungry Hungry Hippos.

“Ah, it’s nice to catch up with old friends,” Jihoon said as the game began. “What have you been up to since you left my care?”

The game got hectic quickly, turning into a frenzy of snapping hippos. The two guests kept shoving each other in an attempt to distract the opponent.

“Well, I just went on with my studies,” Mingyu said.

“Yeah, me too,” confirmed Wonwoo. “But we’re still making music in our spare time.”

“What type?” asked Jihoon, aggressively pushing the table away from his guests to make their fingers slip off the knobs and gain the upper hand.

“Rap,” Mingyu said. “We’re writing raps. Nothing too special but the audience likes it.”

“And that audience would be?”

“Um, friends and family? Although we did go to a slam poetry contest.”

Wonwoo huffed. “Wasn’t our kind of crowd, though. Pretentions pack. All about snobbery stuff. They turned their noses up at our raps.”

“What were they about?” asked Jihoon, kicking the table legs to distract the other players.

Wonwoo looked as contemplative as participating in a fast paced competition let him. “All kinds of stuff. Sunshine, flowers, lazy afternoons, hardcore sex.”

“W-What!?”

Mingyu jumped up, his hands raised. He had gathered the most marbles by a landslide. “Mansae!”

* _Ding Dong_ *

Jihoon sprinted to the door, yelling at his guests to prepare for a rematch.

The very same delivery boy as always held up a plastic bag. “Hey.”

“Yeah, hi. Is the discount already subtracted?”

Jihoon snatched the bag and had to take a look at the bill. Since he had never ordered burgers before he had no reference for the prize as he did for pizza by now.

“I think it is. Listen, can I ask something of you. Just a-“

“Shut up, I have to count,” Jihoon said quietly, counting the money in his hand.

“Just a second, I-“

“Really don’t have the time. Bye.”

Pushing the money right against the delivery boy’s impressively pronounced abs, Jihoon shoved him away from the door step. Pizza boy was left alone in the corridor again just as the timer on the automatic light in the corridor ran out. Jihoon heard a muffled swear as he turned away from the door.

“Alright you rascals. Roll up sleeves, because fat stains or whatever. Do it. So… Who got the cheese burger?”

Wonwoo proclaimed his love for the meal in a high pitched voice. That left one hamburger for Jihoon. Mingyu got three and still finished first.

Again Jihoon went to bed without having found his soulmate. His list of candidates was thinning out rapidly. Could he have met somebody else in those few days? Nah, all he had done during that time was work a lot, sleep a little and eat copious amounts of pizza.

 

♦

 

Now he was really scraping the bottom of the barrel. That at least was what it felt like. Not that he had been opposed to either of those boys being his soulmate, but he just didn’t really want to have to learn Chinese to perfection.

Jihoon was glad to have Jun present since a conversation with Minghao might have gotten a bit stale after they had run out of words Minghao knew. Not that the blond boy went anywhere without Jun by his side anyway.

Surprisingly, Minghao was not only talkative, he started the conversation all by himself. “We saw a dog on the way here. It was  _this_  tall and  _this_  long. It had black fur, but there were a lot of gray hairs in between so I’m guessing it was already a bit older. The fur was fluffy and well combed. I was really happy to see that. You rarely meet a dog so nicely groomed…”

The conversation drifted to other dogs at some point but Jihoon wasn’t even paying attention anymore. He noticed that he could barely recall how he had first stricken up conversation with the two boys.

They were in his classes, sure, but they usually kept to themselves. Oh, right, he had been patting a stray Labrador when Minghao had taken it upon himself to introduce the duo, assuming it was Jihoon’s dog.

Now, this time was a bit more challenging, since neither of them had felt like pizza  _or_  burger. To be honest, Jihoon was a bit fed up with the place anyway, that one delivery boy was just  _so rude_.

Not that this stopped him from ordering at that place again. But this time they tried the salads.

* _Ding Dong_ *

By now the dog recounting had died down and study related subjects were the topic of conversation. Jihoon stood up and walked to the door. How would he make them roll up their sleeves? Salad didn’t leave fat stains like that.

He opened for the pizza – and burger and salad – delivery guy absentmindedly.

“Mister Lee Jihoon? Here’s your order, but I would like to-“

Jihoon threw his money at the delivery boy – same as always – and shut the door.

He returned to his guests and they all started to eat, soon getting back to conversing. Only Jihoon kept looking for a way to undress them – or at least the relevant part of them.

“Jihoonie?” Jun said with furrowed brows.

“Huh?”

“You’re barely talking. And you hardly touched your salad either? Is anything the matter?”

“No, it’s just…”

He had considered his options. He could spill water on the other’s shirt so he had to take it off for drying. He could turn the heat in his apartment up to ludicrous levels. He could even start a fight.

But maybe… the truth was his best bet. Because he was out of options if it wasn’t either of them.

“This is going to sound strange but… has there been… a change for either one of you two in the last few days?”

“Change?” asked Minghao, perhaps unsure if he understood correctly.

Jihoon took a deep breath and rumpled up his sweater’s sleeve. His visitors gasped audibly.

“When?” asked Jun.

“I don’t know for sure. A few days ago?”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.  _I just don’t know!_ ”

“Hey,” said Minghao calmly, “We’ll help you find out. Don’t get upset.”

Jihoon was close to tears. “But that’s just it. If it’s not either of you, I don’t know who else. I already looked at the arms of everybody I saw over the last week. I’m always in my apartment, there’s no way I met someone new. And you guys are the last ones I checked. Any other people I was close to in the last few days I already checked and…”

The Chinese boys exposed the skin on their arms, showing no mark.

Out of luck.

It was a nice evening among friends in the end, but Jihoon couldn’t shake the feeling that he was at the bottom of his list and undeniably still not done. What was he overlooking?

 

♦

 

It was late in the evening and Jihoon was strumming along on his guitar. He considered if living in a building counted as sufficient proximity and wondered if he should ask his neighbors if they had gotten a soulmate mark a few days ago, with no matching mate in sight.

* _Ding Dong_ *

While walking to the door he remembered that he hadn’t even ordered pizza yet. He wondered who else could be ringing his bell.

It was the delivery boy, a box of pizza in his hand.

“Mister Lee, listen-“

“Sorry, I didn’t order anything.”

“No, Mist- Jihoon! For once listen to me.”

“It’s not my pizza. Bye.”

“No!”

The guy stepped forward, one foot half into the apartment. He looked a lot stronger now. And threatening.

Jihoon jumped back. “Alright, I’ll take it. Just-“

“That’s not what I’m trying to-“

“Stop! I have guitar and I’m not afraid to use it.”

The delivery boy froze. He seemed to realize that he was scaring the smaller boy in front of him. After a deep breath he spoke with a much softer voice. “I ordered the pizza to be delivered to your place. I had to see you again. A few days ago I noticed something had popped up on my body after I was done with my route so I spent the whole week checking out the costumers from that day. And the only one I haven’t checked yet is you.”

Jihoon looked down at the pizza box. The boy was in uniform but out of his jacket. His forearms were bare except for one thing.

Reaching for the box, Jihoon held his arm up to the other boy’s. The marks were identical.

With a sigh of both relieve and shock Jihoon looked back up into the warm and gentle face of his soulmate.

“You…”

“Seungcheol is the name. Want to share this one?”

As their hands rested on the pizza box, their skin touched and the marks merged, their bond commencing.

 

♦

 

Jihoon laid on top of his soulmate, his small body absorbing the heat the stronger, well-muscled body under him radiated. Their eyes had not broken contact since they had finished their meal.

“Who would have thought my first date with my soulmate would be a pizza date?”

“Well, me for one,” whispered Seungcheol. “You seem to eat nothing else.”

“I just had a lot of guests lately,” said Jihoon, intertwining their fingers.

“What for?”

“That’s not important anymore.”

“I want to know.”

“In the end… for  _this_ ,” Jihoon mumbled softly as he leaned in.

He wouldn’t have thought that salami and cheese would be a romantic taste, but from those lips, it was.

 

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted from asianfanfics, now that i finally have an AO3 account.  
> Drop me an encouraging line here or over there. Username is the same.


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